It's clear as can be that the tax cut battle of 1995 will be followed by an even larger debate over tax reform, in the 1996 presidential campaign. The Republicans are hoping the tax issue still holds the electoral magic it did in the Reagan landslide year of 1980. President Clinton is countering with a more modest tax cut proposal of his own, while arguing that Republicans have gone overboard.

The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) is a Paris-based intergovernmental agency that seeks to coordinate the policies of 24 leading industrial countries -- the United States, Canada, Japan, Australia, New Zealand and 19 that span Europe from Iceland to Turkey.

In the United States, 29.8 percent of the GDP was siphoned off in taxes. The OECD average was almost 9 points higher -- 38.7 percent. Only two of the 24 countries -- Turkey and Australia -- were fractionally lower than the United States.